student-loans
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Tomás Campos
Tomás Campos is the co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, an Oakland-based fintech building agentic AI-powered credit data and payments infrastructure for the consumer debt market. A UC Berkeley and Haas School of Business graduate, he spent two decades in payments and commerce - growing Blackhawk Network's digital payments division into a $1.5 billion business and co-founding the conversational commerce startup FluidM, which was acquired by Westfield. He launched Spinwheel in 2019 after the consumer debt crisis touched his own family, aiming to make the fragmented world of loans and liabilities as accessible as open banking made bank accounts. In June 2025 the company raised a $30 million Series A led by F-Prime Capital.
Tess Michaels
Tess Michaels is the founder and CEO of Clasp (formerly Stride Funding), a Boston fintech that ties student loan repayment to employment - 'ROTC, but for healthcare.' Employers commit to clinical students before graduation and pay down their loans in exchange for years of tenure. A Wharton grad and Harvard MBA who cut her teeth at Goldman Sachs and Vista Equity, Michaels built her first company at 19. Clasp raised a $20M Series B in March 2026 and employers have committed more than $130M in loan repayment, with retention reportedly 2.5x higher than traditional hiring.
Dror Liebenthal
Dror Liebenthal is the Israeli-born cofounder and CEO of Bold.org, a San Francisco-based platform that enables anyone — individual or company — to create and manage scholarships, fellowships, and grants at no cost. A Princeton Chemical Engineering graduate (magna cum laude, Class of 2015) who was the first in his family to navigate the US education system, Liebenthal built Bold.org after personally experiencing how a single scholarship changed his trajectory. The platform operates the Bold Foundation (501c3), has distributed millions in student scholarships, and pairs its philanthropy product with the Bold Debit Card, a fintech tool designed to help students manage their money and reduce debt.
Eliza Haverstock
Eliza Haverstock is a financial journalist who has covered venture capital, private markets, student loans, and personal finance for outlets including Bloomberg, PitchBook, Forbes, and NerdWallet. A University of Virginia economics and history graduate, she moved from reporting on startups and billionaires to becoming a lead writer on student loan coverage, making complex financial topics accessible for everyday readers.
Vishal Garg
Vishal Garg is the Indian-American founder and CEO of Better.com, the online mortgage broker that went public via SPAC in 2023. A serial entrepreneur since his early twenties, he previously co-founded MyRichUncle, which became the second-largest private student lender in the U.S. before collapsing in the 2008 financial crisis. Known for his blunt communication style - including the infamous 2021 Zoom firing of 900 employees - Garg has built multiple companies at the intersection of finance and technology while living in Manhattan with his wife and three children.